


Touched by your presence dear

by Christmasrose66



Category: Dempsey & Makepeace (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-07 19:00:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26772565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Christmasrose66/pseuds/Christmasrose66
Summary: Dempsey's thoughts, (no real plot to speak of)
Relationships: James Dempsey/Harriet Makepeace
Comments: 1
Kudos: 6





	1. Asleep at the Wheel

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter 1 takes place during the episode "The Burning"

He'd had to go undercover, to give himself time to figure out how Coltrane had tracked him down. The adrenaline hit from undercover work could be addictive, but living on his nerves for weeks on end, had started to take it's toll. "Johny Lupino" was hanging onto his sanity by a thread. He was jumpy, exhausted, and he felt hollow. There was a nasty taste in his mouth, and it wasn't just the cigarettes. He'd picked a brand at random - Embassy.   
He didn't like the taste.  
He pulled the slip of foil off the top of the packet and breathed in, the smell of raisins. Why did cigarettes smell like that?

He'd gone 6 weeks without seeing her, 6 weeks living as "Johny Lupino" and he couldn't take any more. That's when he'd made the decision to call her, just to hear her voice, to see her face, just to know he was still sane, still had a connection to his real life. He needed to make contact, to feel her close to him. They had clung to one another, in a few brief moments on the dance floor, saying so much without words.   
He'd broken into her house again, and didn't regret it. That image of her in a nightshirt, with her knee under her chin, her face fresh and open, her eyes like blue daggers, piercing his brain. That image was living rent free in his head, every time he closed his eyes.

He still had to function as Johny, and the dividing line between both worlds was in danger of slipping. Couldn't she see that? The whole thing almost came crashing down around his ears, when Makepeace appeared in his room one night. He couldn't think straight, just had to get her out of there, practically threw her out of the door, because if he hadn't ..... who knows what might have happened.

He only had a faint general impression of how she'd looked that night, and the more he tried to picture it, the more convinced he was that he had dreamt the whole thing. "What had she been wearing?" he thought to himself. He thought he remembered an outfit that wouldn't have been out of place on a hooker, on some dark street corner, hanging about under a street light in the rain. A bright yellow top, and even in the fleeting (half imaginary) glimpse of his hopped up, jumpy recollection, he would swear that she wasn't wearing a bra, under the skintight yellow fabric. No, that wasn't how he wanted to picture her, was it? He needed another cigarette, or something, anything to stop his imagination running away with him. 

This job had to be over soon, one way or another.


	2. Something Friendly

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Terms used by Dempsey to refer to women in general, and Makepeace in particular

He used a lot of different words to address women, and he'd tried a variety of them on her, with differing degrees of success. 

She'd made it quite clear from the start, that she wouldn't tolerate being addressed as "babe". He hadn't thought of it as offensive, but to her it was patronising, it belittled her. She stood her ground as his equal, and would not be dismissed like a child. He could respect that, he admitted grudgingly. 

He knew the word "broad" was more abrasive, and had only called her that in the heat of an argument. Sometimes she wound him up so tight, he snapped. 

Similarly, he could see the cold, dispassionate look in her eyes, when he used the term "doll", although part of him still felt that the word wasn't actually offensive. Surely it implied that she was pretty, and she was pretty, but there you go, she didn't like it. 

Oddly however, she didn't object to the word "Princess" perhaps because it seemed light-hearted and softly sarcastic, while still containing a hint of affection. It was a word he used with other women too, but there were other terms he used much more sparingly. 

Once or twice, he called her "angel" and she hadn't objected to that. He'd never called another woman "angel" and he wouldn't, although she didn't know it.

Then of course, there was the time they'd been undercover, and he'd addressed her with the old Irish phrase " a chuisle mo cre". She didn't know what it meant, and he didn't tell her, but it was the truth, although he hadn't admitted it to himself. She was "the pulse of my heart", his heartbeat, the thing he couldn't do without, "mo cre" my heart/ my love. That, "love" was a word he hadn't used, and couldn't say outloud. Not yet, but maybe one day.


End file.
